For the 59th straight season, the Buffalo Bills will not have the opportunity to lift the Vince Lombardi Trophy after losing to the Kansas City Chiefs 32-29 in the AFC title game.
It didn’t matter when Buffalo would go up by a few points because you knew the Chiefs would come back, and every time the Bills scored, Kansas City would quickly answer.
The Bills have no answer regarding knocking off the Chiefs in the postseason, and every time you think it will happen, something crushing ruins it.
The Bills Can’t Beat Kansas City
Josh Allen played a great game, throwing for 237 yards and two touchdowns and gaining 39 yards with his legs.
James Cook was excellent on the ground, rushing for 85 yards on 13 carries and two scores.
All the wide receivers stepped up, but the defense had zero answers for stopping Mahomes late in a critical moment.
How often would the defense give up a big play out of the backfield on a misdirection?
It seemed like Patrick Mahomes had everything he wanted all night. Yes, the Bills had injuries to their secondary, but that’s not an excuse. This is the NFL. Everyone is a professional.
Losing to Kansas City four times in the last five postseasons is frustrating, and Bills fans have to start asking themselves when they will finally break through.
Changes have been made in the last few years, such as firing offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and trading wide receiver Stefon Diggs.
Moves Have Been Made
Those decisions were the right ones, and that’s why it’s so painful. The decision to make Joe Brady the offensive coordinator has been excellent and the passing game took off this year without trying to give Diggs ten targets a game.
What is the next move?
Firing head coach Sean McDermott isn’t an option, even though we have seen teams fire their head coach after losing a handful of times in the playoffs.
McDermott getting fired wouldn’t solve any issues; last week, they took down a team just as good as the Chiefs in the Baltimore Ravens, so this issue is just a Kansas City problem.
On the bright side, only three teams can say they have beaten Mahomes in the playoffs in the last seven years. Tom Brady quarterbacked two teams, and in the other game, they lost to the Cincinnati Bengals, the worst second half of Mahomes’s playoff career.
It feels like the Bills wasted another chance of going to the Super Bowl.
I know Allen still has probably ten years left of football, but the AFC is only getting more challenging, and new quarterbacks and coaches are taking over.
Buffalo had the last five years to win the AFC when there weren’t many great teams fighting against them.
The Window Is Closing
Now, that is all going to change next season. The Denver Broncos are getting better with their young quarterback, Bo Nix; the Los Angeles Chargers finally found a head coach for their quarterback, Justin Herbert; Joe Burrow and the Bengals are impressive; and Houston has one of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL, C.J. Stroud.
Moving forward, there is little to feel good about other than Allen, who is still one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
I assume the Bills will make minor tweaks here and there and see if they can overcome their Chiefs curse next January. If they fail again, that could be the time they start making significant changes.
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Bills Lose To The Chiefs For The 4th Time In The Last 5 Postseasons